Please help a graphics cards newbie !

November 15th, 2012, 10:14

I don't remember this. I've had an AMD/ATI card for ages now, too. Don't have a saved game handy or I'd check it myself! I searched for the problem online and this seems unique to you. If it was a generic problem with AMD cards, there'd lkiely be more people with the issue talking about it!Q

I am curious, though. What if this is a problem that cropped up in recent driver builds? Post a saved game near that guy somewhere so I can see!

I really do think the problem in DS2 is likely due to not uninstalling the Nvidia drivers before installing the AMD ones. The last time I switched from an Nvidia to an AMD, I remember not doing that and experiencing a world of misfortune.

Are you talking about Battlefront 2? That does look like a common problem on AMD cards. Some folks say it is related to the AA settings. Others say it is the draw distance. You might be able to get it to work by turning off AA or setting DD to default. Pandemic shut down in 2009 and none of their games are known for being altogether stable and polished. The Saboteur barely runs. Frankly, I'm surprised anyone can run Battlefront 2. Heh, I just looked at it on Steam and saw a friend of mine posted a review "Don't buy this, crashes due to sound problems." This is not a stable game.

AMD and Nvidia break old games as a matter of course. You just happened to stumble upon one you liked. It sucks, but it happens. My reasoning for switching to AMD back 5 years ago was partly because I wanted to play Wizardry 8 again and Nvidia cards, at the time, pretty much failed at running the game. Welcome to PC gaming.

I think every 6 months is overkill, but I agree that most people should probably re-format at least once a year. I'm currently going on 2 years with my current Win 7- Win XP dual-boot setup, and I'm starting to feel lucky that I haven't experienced any issues yet.

Originally Posted by darkling
Are you talking about Battlefront 2? That does look like a common problem on AMD cards.

No, I was meaning SWBF1.

and it was a custom map, not one that shipped with the game.

AMD and Nvidia break old games as a matter of course. You just happened to stumble upon one you liked. It sucks, but it happens. My reasoning for switching to AMD back 5 years ago was partly because I wanted to play Wizardry 8 again and Nvidia cards, at the time, pretty much failed at running the game. Welcome to PC gaming.

I already guessed so.

As far as I can remember, I was uninstalling the NVIDIA driver(s) before I switched to Onboard Graphics. Later, I uninstalled the Onboard Graphics driver before I switched to ATI.

I had spent a WHOLE afternoon with finding out why my graphics card was properly installed, seemed to work, everything - just no signal arrived at the screen.

In the BIOS, I turned off the Onboard graphics, hoping that this would resolve my problem.

But it became even worse : No graphics at all ! Not even during booting !

I wewnt even so far as to clear the CMOS memopry - you know taking out the battery, switching a jumper etc. - after that I at least had Onboard Graphics again.

Then, during the last process, I found out via researching in Wikipedia what "IGP" meant - and PEG, too.

In the handbook, these terms weren't explained, and nowhere else, too.

Finally, it turned out that I could switch the graphics in the BIOS in a similar way like you can switch the PC's boot order : Floppy, CD, HD, for example. Or CD, Floppy, HD.

I could switch betweeg IGP, PEG and PCI or what the third term/abbreviation was.

It turned out that I had switched the "graphics display order", as i calle it, into IGP/PEG. And then turned Onboard Graphics off.

Because IGP means "integrated graphics processor", I had switched the graphics order from Onboard Graphics first, then PCI graphics card (second) - and switched off the Onboard Graphics chip. And because of that, there never reached any signal the screen. The system seemingly still tried to do Onboard Graphics first, without ever switching to the graphics card. All became dark.

Thank you for reading.

I'll try out what you advised later.

— “ Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.“ (E.F.Schumacher, Economist, Source)

Alrik, we expect some news about this, did you try with driver/dx reinstallation?

Stop messing with the onboard chip and CMOS reset! If there is a hardware fault, it's not within BIOS.

One question… Since you said you uninstalled a driver (nvidia), installed another (onboard) and now installed the new hardware… Does this mean you're still running XP? If yes, then forget what I've said about reinstall not needed. With winXP, OS reinstall is necessary.

Read more closely. I talked about having an NVidia card BEFORE it died of overheating and THEN using my Onboard Graphics for 2 months !

The NVidia driver was from that fried NVidia card !
The Onboard Graphics driver was from thast Onboard Graphics Chip !

You should have read from the beginning, not jumping at a few snippets and fragments.

— “ Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.“ (E.F.Schumacher, Economist, Source)

I played Drakensang 2 on my ATI (6970) card 2 months ago without any issues (well beside game bugs). When switching video card, always use Drive Sweeper to remove the former drivers.

Make sure you are not enabling Anti-Aliasing. It's a known cause for black textures and rendering issues with ATI cards. No idea why developers aren't fixing their shitty AA in game though. I usually have to enable it through the ATI panel per games (some just don't work, exSWTOR I have to use the in-game one that cause a huge drop in FPS. yet, in Skyrim it's better to use the ATI panel AA because it doesn't impact the FPS).

— “ Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.“ (E.F.Schumacher, Economist, Source)

Funny : As soon as I had turned off AA in Drakensang 2 and restarted the game, the Beggar looked normal again !

Weird. I didn't imagine AA could have such an big effect …

— “ Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.“ (E.F.Schumacher, Economist, Source)

Buy a 23-24" TFT with 1080p resolution if possible. At such a high resolution (relative to the screen size) you don't need AA at all. Alternatively your ATI should have an HDMI out, so you can plug it into a newish TV. Then you only have to figure out how to get the sound out, or into the HDMI signal, and get a gamepad to effectively have a pretty fast console.

And I'm using the onboard sound chip right now, because the sound card … Well, it would have fitted in, but then it would have been directly under the graphic card's fans, almost touching them … I had no other choice than taking it out, unfortunately. I didn't want to risk an distorted air stream within my PC.

Right now, I'm fine with everything.

— “ Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.“ (E.F.Schumacher, Economist, Source)

The good thing is that with that card you can start by setting everything to max and then take it from there. Especially on older games AA is worth a try. Now that you know it a test run should only take 5 minutes.

— “ Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.“ (E.F.Schumacher, Economist, Source)